I'M BAAAAACK! :D

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(But no flames, they're so discouraging)

Chapter twenty-five

"Look! Is that Mum and Dad's train?!" Roy said excitedly, walking down the stairs to the platform between his grandparents. He had been so excited when Pappy had told him that they were coming home in the middle of their business trip just to be there for his eighth birthday. Nan squeezed his hand and both his grandparents were chuckling. He could imagine Auntie Chris's smirk from where she was walking right behind them.

Then Roy saw his parents get off the train and they were even carrying a big present in their hands and Roy began tugging his grandparents along down the stairs so that they could meet them as quickly as possible.

"Slow down, Roy, you're going to trip yourself," Nan chuckled.

"Can't I just run over? I know where they are even if there are lots of people! I'll be perfectly safe!"

"We've already discussed this, Roy. It's really easy to get lost in big crowds like these, or someone may accidentally push you and you could end up falling onto the tracks. It's not safe, so you're just going to have to wait an extra minute," Pappy said, getting a more secure grip on Roy's hand.

And so Roy had to wait FOREVER until a pair of familiar faces were visible and his grandparents finally let go of him so that he could make his way the last two metres and then he was swept up into his Dad's big arms with a grin. "There he is! The birthday boy!" Dad said, hugging him tightly. "Happy birthday, Son!" Dad chuckled and Roy felt Mum join the hug too as she kissed his forehead.

They spent about a minute hugging each other before he was put back down on the ground. "Now how about we find ourselves a café and some lunch so that you can open your present?" Dad said.

Roy couldn't help the ecstatic jump at the thought. The present was gigantic. His parents laughed and Mum took his hand in hers as Dad carried their luggage.

"Now, your Nan told me that you had some exciting news, Roy?" Mum said, smiling.

Roy nearly jumped again at the thought. "Yeah! I did it! I'm gonna be moved up a year in school! That means that I'm gonna be allowed to read whatever books I want to from the school library now because I'll get access to the "advanced readers" section! And Miss Bradshaw has already put me on the waiting list for three books!"

"Then I guess we'll need to buy you an extra cake, won't we?" Dad chuckled as Mum practically attacked his cheeks and his forehead with kisses. He ruffled his hair, smiling brightly. "Congratulations, Son, that's amazing, and we're so very p—"

Roy couldn't help the little wince at the memory. So much pain had come to so many people from that bomb.

No, Roy knew all too well what it was like to suddenly find yourself a scared orphan in a world that suddenly got a lot darker and scarier.

And it had been what set Roy down this path. With a little help from the bespectacled boy in the hospital bed next to him who had fallen down a tree after taking about fifty pictures of his kitty because "she is the cutest little thing!" and broken his pelvis and two of his ribs. Roy himself had been lying there with both arms broken, three broken ribs, and with a burn covering most of his chest because of the beam that had fallen on him and pinned him down. And with his parents and Aunt Chris all dead.

And then the little boy next to him had told him how he was going to be a policeman and it had...

It had stuck with Roy ever since. That idea of being able to prevent things like that from happening to someone else. And to give some closure to those who hadn't been so lucky.

And Roy cared for the Elrics. They were living and breathing reminders about what Roy was working for. In a way, they gave him a surge of inspiration every time he looked at them. And they were nice kids. He liked them. They had been through hell and they were still nice kids.

He could still recall that strange feeling of child lips gently pressing against his cheek, and that was an odd one. A warm, slightly daunting one.

Then he chuckled as he thought about the way Ed had acted afterwards. That whole "I'm going to give you some sort of sign of my gratitude because you saved my little brother and I kinda trust you and so I'll give you a peck and then we'll never EVER speak of it again," thing was very amusing and sort of sweet. And it felt rewarding because he knew that if Ed didn't like him, then he would only have mumbled his thanks and left.

He was about to pull into his Nan's street, and turned the car around the corner leisurely, filled with good feelings, even if growing increasingly worried about the Elrics's involvement in the case.

He felt a smile on his lips as he thought about how those two, with everything that they had been through, they reached out to him. They trusted him. He would keep them safe, and he knew Hawkeye would too. It would be all right and those boys would be safe.

And looking at Sergeant Hawkeye as she smiled at them, still hugging Alphonse and ruffling Edward's hair, it made him happy. It made him happy to know that they had someone to look after them and help them and—

Standing there, smiling, reaching around Riza's waist and hugging her from behind, placing a kiss on her cheek and smiling at the two boys as they grinned back and hugged them both around the middle.

Roy almost drove the car into the lamppost as his controlled parking turned into anything but. He slammed on the brakes, swerving away from the lamppost before he parked the car outside the small apartment block, his breathing a lot quicker than it had been twenty seconds ago.

That was NOT a mental picture he should ever have. Not at all.

Where the hell did that come from?!

Roy grasped his hair in his hands and massaged his temples. That wasn't good. That wasn't good at all.

Calm down, Roy, it's probably just because Ed suggested that you had spent the night sleeping with Hawkeye.

That, however, made some VERY compromising mental pictures form in his mind and he gulped as he slammed his hands on the steering wheel instead and gripped it tightly in his hands, his breathing coming even faster as realisation dawned on him as he put two and two together. The way he found Hawkeye attractive, even when she had been dishevelled and wearing unflattering clothing, the way he liked her scent, the way he found her voice soothing, how likeable she was.

...The way seeing her smile like she had when he returned with Ed had made his stomach pulse with pleasurable warmth.

Roy slammed his forehead on the steering wheel to join his hands. He was a fucking DCI seen as a prodigy for his ability to make connections and solve some of the most challenging cases in the Eastern Area. For his ability to use his intellect and not let his emotions cloud his judgement so much that it blocked him from seeing that it was the daughter that was the killer no matter all her tears.

The man with the gut instinct that had yet to prove him wrong, had now failed to realise that he had been crushing on his new Sergeant for nearly two weeks ever since he helped her carry the boxes into her flat.

"Who just happens to be a recently divorced foster mother for two kids," Roy said and banged his head on the steering wheel some more.

This would make everything so damn complicated. A constant distraction from his work WHILE working, now that his head had caught up on what his downstairs brain was thinking.

How the hell had he been fooling himself with "I'm a man and she is an attractive female, of course I am going to notice it, but that is all there is to it"?

And he happened to be crushing on the foster mother of two kids he cared very much about and where one of them had made it very clear JUST THIS MORNING that he was probably going to strangle Roy if he ever let something slip, which would be hard, seeing as how he would be working with their foster mother in the same office while Ed was there to be highly irritated about how his arm was broken and he needed help with almost everything, which in turn made him even more suspicious of EVERYONE.

Which again would mean that if he didn't watch himself, then Edward was probably going to lose his trust in Roy and thereby his trust in any sort of male figure.

"And lest we forget that he also planted the idea that I am after Riza Hawkeye in the heads of everyone in the office, including my best friend for the past seventeen years who is also a very talented policeman himself."

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Roy's forehead was beginning to hurt from this. Basically, he was just adding his forehead to the headache this was all giving him.

Then he remembered how much worse this was because of the fact that he just happened to be crushing on his boss's granddaughter.

"This won't end well for me," Roy groaned.

Okay, he needed to talk to his Nan even more now. She'd be able to set him straight, she always had. And he could share his concerns with her regarding the Elrics, although of course keeping the confidential things confidential. He was a professional, after all.

He got out of the car quickly, slamming the door shut a bit harder than necessary, before locking it and looking into his own reflection in the window and fixing his hair to hide his distress. Then he took a deep breath and walked casually up to the building, using his key to avoid all that being buzzed in stuff, seeing as how that didn't work particularly well with his Nan being deaf and resulted in needing to be buzzed in by the neighbours instead.

He made his way up to the second floor before pressing the special doorbell that was connected to the bright blue lightbulbs in the three rooms that made up the flat.

Ten seconds later, Nan was standing in the doorway, smiling brightly before hugging him around the chest. She was only about five feet tall, but it was kind of enjoyable to feel this tall every time he met one of the two people who raised him since age eight, and so he put his hands around her, smiling, feeling the hug already calming his otherwise distressed mind somewhat.

Then a familiar face peeked out into the hallway and lit up. "Roy! Great timing! We were just about to eat Gracia's apple pie, come join us!"

"What the hell are you doing here, Maes?!" Roy demanded. This was certainly NOT great timing.

"I'm here to visit Nanna Mustang with the traditional apple pie! I didn't have time yesterday!"

Definitely no talking about Riza Hawkeye then.